In reply to:

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SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

. . .to provide performance at least equivalent to existing mushroom spawn formulas in the time to full colonization of the substrate.

. . . to provide the maximum number of points of inoculum in the mushroom substrate to reduce the time for full colonization of the substrate.

. . . to provide a formulated mushroom spawn with a high content of nutrients to reduce or eliminate the need to separately add a mushroom nutrient supplement.

. . . to provide supplementary nutrients to the mushroom substrate without a resultant detrimental increase in substrate temperature.

. . . to provide supplementary nutrients to the mushroom substrate without the need to treat the nutrients with pesticides, denaturants, or other chemical or physical treatments to eliminate the growth of competing microorganisms.

. . . to provide a formulated mushroom spawn that reduces the risks of sterilization failure and incomplete colonization of the mixtures by improving aeration of the mixtures and reducing the formation of clumps.

. . .When prepared and used as disclosed herein, the mushroom spawn reduces the time to achieve full colonization of the substrate and provides unexpected increases in mushroom yield and production efficiency. . . The invention provides a fully functional formulated mushroom spawn and mushroom supplement in a single ingredient. Because the spawn as disclosed is heavily colonized with mushroom mycelium, most foreign microorganisms cannot grow well on the material. Therefore, the invention also provides a mushroom supplement containing no pesticides, denaturants, or other chemical or physical treatments to control the growth of competing microorganisms and avoids deleterious increases in the temperature of non-sterile substrates.

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